2023-10-26 17:37:06
Who decides what we will see in the biggest museums in a few decades? At the very beginning of this long process, we find a nebula of small galleries. Those who unearth artists barely out of school, painters, sculptors and videographers who have yet to show anything, sell nothing and prove nothing, and whom they accompany, according to doubts and successes.
“The relationship between curator (expository Comissioner) and artist is necessarily narrow when it comes to emerging creation”, reports Thomas Havet, founder of DS Galerie, installed in 2023 near Place de la République, in Paris.
It is difficult to precisely count the emerging galleries among the 1,200 listed in France. Marion Papillon, director of the professional committee of art galleries (CPGA), which represents 330 galleries, asserts, however, that “27% of them were between one and nine years old in 2020.” They are mainly located in the capital, even if they spread throughout the territory, defending artists who are not Parisians and participating in fairs in the regions, such as Art-o-rama in Marseille.
A fringe oligopoly
Their economic model is not easy. Concretely, the gallery must incur costs to obtain premises – most often in the expensive Marais district –, the transport of works, and the assembly and dismantling of exhibitions. All this, while the artist has not yet aroused the appetite of collectors and there is no guarantee that his works will sell despite all the work of the gallery owner upstream. Without forgetting the desires of larger galleries, quick to recruit promising artists from smaller structures.
“The contemporary art gallery world is a fringe oligopoly”, summarizes economist Nathalie Moureau, one of the rare economists to be interested in this still little-known sector (1). In other words, the market is dominated by a small number of large companies – like the Perrotin or Kamel Mennour galleries, for example – which represent a significant share of sales, while the smaller ones – the fringes – take care of the detection work.
This market structure, well known in the music industry or publishing, appeared in the art world in the early 2000s. “It was the increase in the number of very wealthy collectors, and therefore of clients, which changed the situation at the beginning of the century, recalls Nathalie Moureau. There are far fewer art collectors than book buyers, which implies a personal link between gallery owners and collectors and has long delayed the emergence of a real market. »
€10,000 for a fair
Another difficulty for emerging galleries: the proliferation of fairs since the 2000s. Born in the 1970s, they are today “at least 240”, according to Nathalie Moureau. The nerve center of the art market, they bring together collectors and galleries, obliged to participate to gain visibility, while the entry price exceeds €10,000 for the most prestigious of them, Art Basel.
“For a small gallery, this is a disproportionate risk: if the bet fails, it may be difficult to recover,” explains Nathalie Moureau again. These new expenses also deprive galleries of resources that could be used to promote artists, which sometimes pushes the latter to join larger structures, more able to defend their work in the following stages of their careers.
These difficulties are leading to the rapid disappearance of many galleries, especially among those less than five years old. “Even if, in the absence of reliable data, we cannot say that this is worse than for other very small companies, notes Nathalie Moureau. But it is obvious that emerging galleries are very fragile structures. » Especially since banks are reluctant to grant them loans. To get started, you need to have strong backbones.
“You have to have a mattress”
Financially, many gallery owners can count on starting assets, particularly real estate. This is for example the case of Anne-Laure Buffard, who temporarily invests in places like 3537 in the Marais and can also count on a showroom accessible by appointment in the wealthy Bourse district. “I am lucky to be co-owner of this old office with my aunt and my cousins, she explains. With a little imagination, I was able to transform it into a hanging space. »
The gallery owner says this helped her when she started, in May 2022. “I started when I had two children, and the fact of having a place at lower cost from the start reassured me, in addition to giving me credibility. I was also able to move my risk-taking elsewhere, by representing less commercial artists”like Élie Bouisson, who creates works with sewn tree leaves, fragile and therefore less easy to collect.
Opening of the IDLE exhibition by the artist duo Émilie Brout and Maxime Marion, on September 10, at the 22.48 m2 gallery, which joined the Komunuma collective in Romainville. / Gallery 22.48 m2
The same goes for Rosario Caltabiano, who founded the 22.48 m2 gallery, initially located in Belleville, while being an administrator of a company founded by his grandfather, in Italy. “This allowed me to continue my activity without too much pressure on sales, he explains. At the beginning, the risks are enormous, so you have to have a cushion. »
Collectors Network
Rosario Caltabiano also used his own apartment. “It is located on the ground floor with a shop on the street which is already used as commercial premises,” he emphasizes. This allowed him to reduce expenses – the name of his gallery, 22.48 m2, refers to the surface area of this room.
Thomas Havet joined forces to open DS Galerie with a collector who was also a reinsurance broker, Thomas Meerman. “Money is essential. Space owners like banks ask for guarantees, assures the latter. My other activity secured them. »
In addition to money or heritage, many gallery owners get started thanks to a pre-existing network of collectors. Anne-Laure Buffard had met many of them during her eleven years spent at Nathalie Obadia, a major Parisian gallery. “Many of them actually followed with interest what I was doing when I started, even if today they are not necessarily my most important collectors,” she testifies.
In the ultra-competitive environment of the art market, gallery owners can also choose to stick together by pooling their operating costs. This is for example the case in Romainville (Seine-Saint-Denis), where a project called Komunuma, bringing together several galleries in the same place, was launched by the Fiminco Foundation.
“It’s a way of working in a network, of reducing competition and prices. The owner is, for example, building a building that will serve as storage for everyone,” says Rosario Caltabiano, whose gallery, 22.48 m2, joined the site in September. A type of collaboration that can also develop on the Web, as in 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the Sans Title gallery, founded by Marie Madec, launched a mini-fair online with sixteen other places.
The choice of nomadism
Nomadism is another way of existing for gallery owners who lack resources at the start. Manon Sailly, director of the Hors-Cadre gallery, founded in February 2018, has for example invested in greenhouses in Biarritz or a former laundry in Paris. But with fairs often requiring a fixed address, most nomadic galleries end up becoming more settled, especially since having their own space reassures collectors and artists more.
Ultimate D system to break even: renting your space during Fashion Week, a particularly profitable activity for those based in the Marais. “Almost all galleries do it, reports Nathalie Moureau. For some, this practically solves the question of rent. »
The fact remains that despite the resourcefulness, daily life remains difficult. “To be a gallery owner, you need a managerial eye and skills, summarizes Marion Papillon. We see that the new generation is better equipped than the previous ones on this second point, there is a real professionalization of the profession. »
Often at the cost of a large investment. “I haven’t had any days off, weekends included, for a month,” testifies Marie Madec, who nevertheless refuses to turn to more profitable works – paintings, easier to transport and less expensive to produce. “We exhibit a lot of installations, baroque things, our aesthetic is inspired by theater and staging. This is why collectors are interested in our work, and we do not intend to deviate from our line,” she insists.
An intransigence also put forward by his colleagues, who claim the primacy of their tastes over the logic of profitability. “Obviously, gallery owners defend artists in whom they believe, abounds Nathalie Moureau. However, the goal is to make them known in order to be able to sell them. We cannot uncorrelate the artistic from the financial. » A precarious balance, on which the diversity of works in our museums ultimately depends twenty years from now.
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At the Paris + fair, the selection is tough
Of the 154 galleries from 33 countries present at the Paris + by Art Basel fair from October 18 to 22 at the ephemeral Grand Palais in Paris, there were only 14 known as “emerging”, including two French ones – Parliament and Untitled. Two others – Anne Barrault and Édouard Montassut – present in this sector last year, have been promoted this time to the rank of dedicated galleries.
The selection is therefore tough for these young exhibitors, who are also forced to present only one artist in Paris. But they are “symbolically positioned, at the center of the fair, as discoverers of tomorrow’s talents”, insists Noah Horowitz, the boss of Art Basel. As a form of support, the fair grants them stands at a 50% reduced price.
Another boost: the best stand in this emerging sector will be awarded an award by an international jury and the costs reimbursed to the gallery by the Lafayette Anticipations foundation in Paris, which will produce and exhibit works by the winning artist the following year. This currently presents the 2022 winner, the Jamaican Akeem Smith, defended by the Heidi gallery in Berlin.
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